Surry Opera offers sweet goodbye with far-reaching farewell concert> Four-hour spectacular provides enchanting music from many nations

When Walter Nowick says goodbye, there’s no telling what language he will use. On Sunday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono, he orchestrated a recital-type concert to bid adieu to his friends from Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and America, all of whom gathered to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of the Surry Opera Company which Nowick founded. Even Nowick, who fluently speaks English and Japanese, as well as some German and Russian, didn’t know what language to use.

So he turned to the language of music for a common tongue, an approach which is the very essence of the Surry Opera philosophy.

In the course of the four-hour presentation, which is the first of two farewell concerts, more than 100 singers took to the stage and were accompanied by Nowick, John Haskell and several other pianists. Representatives from the St. Petersburg Amateur Opera, the Kyoto Opera, the Bergisches Gesanginstitut, and the Andre Sala Chorus performed together in selections from the operas “Ruslan and Ludmila,” “Lohegrin,” and “Abesalom and Eteri.”

With clear-throated trills, Russian soprano Ekatarina Gromova beautifully revitalized the old cliche “to sing like a bird” in the cavatina (short aria) from “Ruslan.” But the soloists and small-group ensembles for this evening’s pieces were exceptionally talented amateurs in general. Maine residents Kathleen Sikkema and Claude Dupuy were not least among them. Whatever the full chorus might have lacked in attack, the soloists made up for in skill and confidence.

One of the highlights of the concert was an impromptu performance by Kyoko Uketa, a personal friend of Nowick and a member of the team from Japan. Ukeda sang two Japanese children’s songs, one about the moon, another about the bluebird. The only folk music in the program, these sweet songs had a mesmerizing sincerity and simplicity.

Selections from Yukuma Dan’s opera “Twilight Heron” offered the most exotic sounds of the night, as well as a rare opportunity in these parts to hear a Japanese composition.

In between pieces, Nowick spoke to the audience, explaining storylines from the operas or introducing performers and his relationship to them. At the beginning of the second half of the concert, a representative from each country spoke about the opportunity to sing together in harmony. On behalf of U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, Clyde MacDonald presented a letter of appreciation to Nowick for Surry Opera’s ongoing cultural exchange, particularly as it pre-dated the governmental end of the Cold War.

Audience members shuffled in and out during the evening. By the end of the concert, there were probably as many people in the audience as were on the stage. Many of the singers were tired after a week of traveling and performing, and several fell asleep in the back of the hall.

But for those who stayed awake until the end, a treat was waiting in the performance of Renaissance love and religious choral works by the Andre Sala Chorus, a group that comes from Chevreuse near Paris. Led by Pierre Jean Michel Devernay, these singers had tight harmonies, lovely tonality and shining enthusiasm.

Although the concert moved slowly through more than 20 selections, it was clear that Nowick’s Surry Opera has personal significance for hundreds of people from around the world who all speak the same language of song.

Surry Opera Company will perform 7:30 p.m. Aug. 9 at the First Universalist Church in Bangor; 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at the Concert Barn in Surry; 7:30 p.m. Aug. 12 at the Bangor Opera House; 3 p.m. Aug. 14 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono; and 7 p.m. Aug. 16 at Deertrees Foundation in Harrison. For information, call 667-